13 May 2013

Meeting Astronauts in Karaganda

Mention that you live in Kazakhstan and the first thing that
people associate with the country is Baikonur – the massive space complex in
the steppe. Gagarin left the earth from
Baikonur and it is now the only launch base for manned space missions to the
International Space Station. It is possible to take a tour to Baikonur -
watch a launch, stay in the cosmonauts hotel and visit the historic launch pads
and museum. Sadly the costs of the tours
are very high and beyond our pockets, even with just the in-country costs to
consider.

Luckily there are some other opportunities to find out more about Kazakhstan's role in space exploration. Due to the return of the current ISS crew this week a large number of
astronauts have gathered in Kazakhstan to form the welcome home team. We heard that they were holding some meet and
greet sessions in Karaganda – one of our neighbouring towns- over the weekend
so we arranged to go down to participate.

Kazakhstan is vast, it is very easy to forget how large it
is but we are reminded every time we leave Astana – Karaganda, our nearest
large neighbour is about 220 kilometers south on the main north south highway,
we had to leave the house at 6am on a Sunday to make the event in time. The highway cuts through the steppe, which is endless with small villages every now and then before reaching Temirtau, a metallurgical center and some small hills just outside Karaganda. The road is decent but single lane which means that the speed is limited to 70kph for much of the distance.

Dachas outside Karaganda

Karaganda City Center - monument to miners

It is always fascinating to see other parts of the
country. We had been to Karaganda
before, an autumn trip two days before the first snowstorms. No place looks good in October and Karaganda
was no exception, the fountains were boarded up for winter, the flower beds dug
up and the riverside park was closed. It
was a pleasure, therefore, to see the city in the spring. There are beautiful tree lined boulevards and
some stunning buildings. Sadly our trip
coincided with one of our rare but fierce rainstorms meaning we were not able
to enjoy our planned picnic by the river.

Karaganda in the Autumn

Karaganda is an industrial and mining center and this is
evident wherever you look, even the local football team are called the
miners. It was once the second city in
Kazakhstan and was a candidate for the new capital city when the decision was
made to relocate north from Almaty. Karaganda
is also infamous as being a large Gulag (Karlag) administration center during
the Stalin years, many of the residents were Volga Germans and Poles, forcibly
relocated because of their ethnicity and a large proportion of these people
have left in recent years. The net result of this is that the city gives the
impression of being a little too large for its needs and it lacks the bustle of
Astana.

The meet and greet was held in the American Cultural Corner
in the Karaganda research library and comprised a large panel which include Michael
Surber who is in charge of manned spaceflight and Kirk Shireman the deputy
manager of the ISS. Eric Boe and Kenneth
Cockerill, two shuttle pilots with extensive experience of trips to the ISS,
gave us a presentation on the development of the ISS and how it has changed
over the past 15 years before taking questions on just about every subject
related to space. It was a once in a
lifetime chance and well worth the horrible early morning and 6 hour round
trip.

Eric Boe gives a presentation on Discovery's last mission

After the meet and greet we took the opportunity to visit the
regional museum next door. The first
floor has some interesting exhibits on the history of the Karaganda area from
prehistoric times up to about 1900. The
second floor concentrates on more recent history including the early mining
industry, Soviet times, the Great Patriotic War, space exploration from Kazakhstan
and the country since independence.

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About Me

I am a no longer 30 something global soul, a perpetual expat. I was born in the Netherlands to a Dutch/Irish Family. Since then I have lived in Norway, Nigeria, Turkey and Venezuela. I went to school and university in the UK. We decided to have an adventure and took our children and the dog(s) to live abroad, first to Kazakhstan and then to various locations in Malaysia. Our current home is in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
This blog is about how we muddle through daily life as expats and how things have changed from the adventures of my childhood.